Making service robots human-safe

This paper first reviews the literature about the very important but neglected issue of safety in service-robots applications. Most of the few existing approaches are limited because they lack flexibility. We argue that human-tailored safety schemes are greatly needed, and propose two strategies in the line we think human-safe robots should be conceived. A fast method to derive the robot's incremental movements given a workspace force applied to the robot constitutes the basis of the robot behaviors that underlie the proposed strategies. Our simulations show that our strategies are safe, human-friendly and exhibit real-time performance. Finally, we discuss the many ways in which our work can be extended.

[1]  Yasuo Kuniyoshi,et al.  Qualitative Recognition of Ongoing Human Action Sequences , 1993, IJCAI.

[2]  Angel P. del Pobil,et al.  A hierarchy of detail for fast collision detection , 2000, Proceedings. 2000 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2000) (Cat. No.00CH37113).

[3]  Oussama Khatib,et al.  Real-Time Obstacle Avoidance for Manipulators and Mobile Robots , 1986 .

[4]  Nobuyuki Yamasaki,et al.  Active interface for human-robot interaction , 1995, Proceedings of 1995 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[5]  J. Hallam,et al.  Exploring the Role of Emotions in Autonomous Robot Learning , 1998 .

[6]  Angel P. del Pobil,et al.  Very fast collision detection for practical motion planning. II. The parallel algorithm , 1998, Proceedings. 1998 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.98CH36146).

[7]  Albert-Jan Baerveldt.  A SAFETY SYSTEM FOR CLOSE INTERACTION BETWEEN MAN AND ROBOT , 1992 .

[8]  J Heinzmann,et al.  Smart Interfaces + Safe Mechanisms = Human Friendly Robots , .

[9]  Koji Ikuta,et al.  General evaluation method of safety for human-care robots , 1999, Proceedings 1999 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.99CH36288C).

[10]  Oussama Khatib,et al.  Real-Time Obstacle Avoidance for Manipulators and Mobile Robots , 1985, Autonomous Robot Vehicles.

[11]  Yoshifumi Nishida,et al.  Active understanding of human intention by a robot through monitoring of human behavior , 1994 .

[12]  Peter Hughes,et al.  A Framework for Enhancing the Safety Process for Advanced Robotic Applications , 1995 .

[13]  Yoji Yamada,et al.  A failure-to-safety "Kyozon" system with simple contact detection and stop capabilities for safe human-autonomous robot coexistence , 1995, Proceedings of 1995 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[14]  Toshi Takamori,et al.  Stochastic prediction of human motion and control of robots in the service of human , 1993, Proceedings of IEEE Systems Man and Cybernetics Conference - SMC.

[15]  M. Rechsteiner,et al.  Implementation aspects of a real time workspace monitoring system , 1995 .

[16]  Toshi Takamori,et al.  A Model of Human Actions by a Petri Net and Prediction of Human Acts. For Generation of Home Robots Movement based on Prediction of Human Actions. , 1997 .

[17]  Masaki Hayashi,et al.  On motion planning of mobile robots which coexist and cooperate with human , 1995, Proceedings 1995 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Human Robot Interaction and Cooperative Robots.

[18]  David Kortenkamp,et al.  Recognizing and Interpreting Gestures on a Mobile Robot , 1996, AAAI/IAAI, Vol. 2.

[19]  S. P. Gaskill,et al.  Safety issues in modern applications of robots , 1994 .

[20]  Shinichi Hirai,et al.  Realization of safety in a coexistent robotic system by information sharing , 1998, Proceedings. 1998 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.98CH36146).

[21]  T. Nakata,et al.  Expression of Emotion and Intention by Robot Body Movement , 1998 .